Tattoo Me!!!!

What with all the things I've had to keep me distracted from my blog of late, I forgot to mention that I finally got one of the "Things to do Before I'm 30" items checked off the list.

This photo is from the first sitting of my shiny new tattoo....instead of going for something small, I went for a much larger back piece (although even though it is now "finished" I am sure more will be added to it.

As soon as I get a photo of the finished product, I shall be posting it on here as I'm super happy with it.

All the shading is done and I have vines and flowers twisted across the top and bottom.

Having a tattoo done on my back was a very strange experience, I have no idea what other parts of the body feel like to have tattooed as this is currently my one and only, however, there were parts that I could hardly feel at all whereas other parts hurt so badly, I felt like I was in serious danger of turning around and punching my tattooist in the face!

The one thing I would recommend to anybody thinking of getting a tattoo done is DON'T just go into the studio and flick through the books to find the one you want. Those are designs that lots of people have. If you want something different and original, start with an image and google it. I went through thousands of pictures of butterflies before I settled on some that I liked and then we took those and turned them into a design that worked on my back. Thus making my permanent (and it IS permanent, don't forget) slightly more personal. Although I didn't do the actual tattoo, it feels like something I have worked on.

Love it Love it Love it!!!!

The Wicked Game....?

So.

I have started singing again. On Monday, over 10 years since I last got up on a stage to sing, me and my friend got up and did a few songs at our local open mic night.

I had seriously forgotten how good it felt to be up in front of people, or how comfortable it would be. I was a bit nervous before we went on, but really I was more excited. I don't understand why I've left it so long as it felt more like home than any other job I've ever done.....

Back in my younger days, I think I honestly believed that fame and fortune would get dropped in my lap and when that didn't happen, I got despondent and stopped bothering. Now I know the ONLY way to do this and make it work is both hard work and shameless self-promotion.

I am just hoping we haven't left it too late, and that we're going to be able to get to a point with it where we don't have to actually work our day jobs. It was really hard on Tuesday, after the dizzying high of singing to a room full of people the night before, to go into work and just get on with things like spreadsheets........

WTF!!!

I am a compooter nerd and I only just noticed :-s

This is Very Bad Indeed.

God, what if I start LIKING Star Trek...???

I would like to state for the record, whilst I am still in control of my faculties, PLEASE if you EVER hear me say that Deep Space Nine "isn't all that bad" you have my complete permission to slap me as hard as you can in the face and then shake me until I come to my senses....!

And Another Thing....

I would just like to take a moment to share how annoying it is when you have insomnia and your partner doesn't.

I may have mentioned this particular source of irritation in previous posts, but it has been so very long since I last blogged that I figured I may as well go over it again.

At the moment, I am surviving on an average of FOUR HOURS of proper sleep a night (hence the return of my ramblings on here). It is frustrating as I am tired ALL OF THE TIME and spend the vast majority of my daytime hours wandering around like a lost extra from Dawn of the Dead...

If this wasn't bad enough, the Wifey still has the very unfair ability of being able to sleep both anywhere and anytime. She currently comatose on the other end of the sofa, every so often I have to dodge a flailing leg, but apart from that she is out for the count...

If I try and get her to go to bed without me, she will inevitably demand that I accompany her to bed where, despite the fact I am currently unable to sleep until around the 2am mark every night, I am apparently expected to TRY.

For people who don't suffer from sleepless nights, the WORST thing that somebody who can sleep at the drop of a hat can do to you, is insist that you deal with your aforementioned total lack of sleep, by watching them enjoy spending time in the Land of Nod...

Just to set the record straight,

THIS IS NOT HELPFUL.

You Bastards.

In Fact, It's VERY ANNOYING. If I want to do something like watch a film or play computer games, this will distract me from the fact that the thing I want more than anything else in the whole entire Universe is to go to sleep. Watching YOU sleep DOES NOT help with this (funnily enough).

*Sighs Loudly*

Basement Dwellers of the World, Unite!!

Damn...

I thought I'd managed to get past my seriously nerdy Internet addiction but it seems each week I am finding new guilty pleasures.

I have finally kicked the Facebook habit (to a degree) and, finally, my life has stopped being dominated by the urge to play with my farm/cafe/sorority/mafia/restaurant/town etc etc etc...

This is because I have now discovered the wonderful world of Evony, a fantabulous home for all those of us who secretly miss the joys of Civilisation. However, it seems to be sucking up such vast amounts of my time that I can't remember what my relatives look like.

I have also started talking like a Star Trek nerd, which is fine when you are talking to overweight Americans who live in Mom's basement, not so much when in conversation with people in the "real" world.

The strangest thing about it all is, I really am no better than the basement dwellers and have realised that I really AM a giant nerd.

I just get away with it cos I'm not ginger.......

Question

What is the Point of Snooker?

Apart from being a brilliant sleep-aid. Works better than Nytol for me!

A Moment of Calm....

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately.

I've realised (after much tortured musing) that the reason I always feel like everything has gone horribly wrong isn't actually because it has. My life is actually going fairly well. I'm happily married, I have a job that pays well and I (mostly) enjoy doing, I'm healthy (apart from the fags), I have all my limbs (touch wood), I have two cats who love me very much (as long as I remain the provider of food, water and unsolicited cuddles) and I have some marvellous and interesting friends.

What I don't have is autonomous control over everything I do.

This is the problem with having a job. You need one to pay for food, heat, a roof and all those other things it's hard to live without. I don't feel in control of my working day as ultimately, somebody else decides what I should be doing. My job is pretty great, as far as jobs go, but I don't actually want to be working for somebody else forever.

I don't really know how I'm supposed to tackle this. I'm rapidly approaching thirty and time could be an issue. As is money. However, since I had this epiphany, I've found myself moaning a whole lot less. It's like something has switched over inside my head and I don't get so angry about things these days. Being calm is very strange for me, I feel like I've been annoyed for years and suddenly, a cloud has completely lifted from above my head. I'm not sure that this is permanent but I do feel better for the moment.

The next obstacle to overcome is the hulking great one where I have to make a decision about what I want to do. And then, when I've made said decision, I'll have to actually attempt to stick to it. And not get bored and start chasing the next interesting thing that comes along five minutes later......

Could be tricky......

Oh for God's Sake!!

My Internet keeps breaking down.

It's really annoying.

I want to break things. (That aren't my computer because it might start working again if I'm nice).

Ho Hum.

At least I've had a productive day I suppose and I've actually remembered to start writing my blog again which has lapsed woefully over the last year. Which is partly because Facebook isn't working again today and won't let me do anything I want to do.

'Sigh'

Maybe this will inspire me to actually leave the house occasionally and catch up with some of the friends I've been neglecting too.

F**K IT!!
I know, I'll use my time to do something amazingly fun and exciting.

Or I could just sit here writing drivel seeing as all my creativity seems to have been completely sucked out of me. At least I know nobody's reading this, probably because I am rather erratic when it comes to remembering to post, and also because I mainly write drivel, which isn't the sort of thing I read when I've got nothing better to do. So I can't really expect anybody else to want to read it either.

I've been thinking about my life a lot recently. When I was in my teens, I really thought I'd have things sorted out by now. I was going to be rich and famous, live in a big house and not have to worry about crap stuff like bills and hanging out the washing that is currently sitting in it's basket staring at me. It hasn't quite gone according to plan although the things that have gone well have beaten my expectations by miles.

What I did think I might actually do (big house in the country and my own line of soft drinks aside) was to actually be earning money for doing fun, creative things. I regret bitterly that I've managed to sustain my complete inability to properly see anything through. And, indeed, my abject laziness, which is probably the thing that holds me back the most.

The only thing I have really sustained is my amazing ability to moan at great length about the fact that nothing seems to be working out by itself.

I don't think I can get paid for that.......

Help! I Lost Me......

The interesting thing about death is how it makes you feel.

My father passed away last month and since then, I haven't felt like I know who I am, what I'm doing or where I'm going.

The funny thing is, I struggle to remember a time when he wasn't ill. 'They' had been telling us he had six months left since I was about sixteen, so to have had him for an extra twelve years was great. I don't think I ever believed that the day would come that he wouldn't be here any more, and although it wasn't the biggest shock in the world, I still feel as if none of this is real and I've spent the last four weeks dreaming.

Some days I feel so empty, I don't want to get out of bed. These low times are interspersed with periods of extreme hyperactivity, where I run round like Speedy Gonzales at ninety miles an hour, multi-tasking like there will be no tomorrow.

It's like I'm lost and looking for a way back to the entrance of a vast labyrinth. If I can get there, everything will go back to normal, and I'll be able to feel like a person again. I've never really been one for 'fitting in' but at the moment it's like I'm watching the world, rather than being a part of it.

I've been avoiding my friends.

I haven't meant to but I know I've been doing it. I've managed family gatherings but when it comes to spending time with the people who know me best, I've been really struggling to face them. Maybe it's because in some part of my head, I know that they'll be able to see clearly that everything is not right. I can't paper over the cracks so well with people that can see through me like I'm glass so I avoid all contact with them because that way, I won't have to face how empty I feel.

I refuse to go to a therapist or doctor.

I think that the prospect of either being encouraged to take drugs, or talk about my feelings with a complete stranger is even more daunting that the idea of facing this on my own. You can read lots of information about bereavement, and it all pretty much says the same thing. It will make you weird for a while. It will hurt for even longer. But, in the end, all of this will go away.

What it gets replaced with, I'm not sure............

Stand and Deliver!

I've recently spent a week in lovely Benidorm, Last Bastion of the British Empire.

You may well turn up your nose, but I found it to be one of the most relaxing holidays I've ever had. It was like it was 1989 all over again, the Land That Time Forgot. Cheap cigarettes, cheap beer and so much tacky entertainment I was spoilt for choice all week. It was also incredibly clean, the Spanish were super friendly and when I attempted my broken efforts at the local language, merely chuckled and spoke back in such perfect English, I was embarrassed by my dulcet Hampshire slang.

It is also possible to enjoy a Full English Breakfast there for about twelve pence (okay, I'm exaggerating again but it was Super Cheap). As you dear reader will be aware of, a Full English Breakfast is essential for any English tourist with a chronic hangover.

Obviously I was VERY SHOCKED on returning to Blighty and being charged SEVENTEEN POUNDS for two breakfasts (with coffee) at a Motorway Service Station.

In the olden days, men with masks and guns would halt the progress of carriages demanding the frightened passengers hand over either their money or their life. This was how I was made to feel on Monday morning. I was Very Hungry Indeed and as I had spent a week existing on fry-ups, was not quite ready to give them up before my return to work and the inevitable diet that would ensue. I don't understand how they get away with it! Surely Motorway Service Stations are not THAT expensive to run. The other shocking thing was that it was packed. Many people were trying their best to enjoy their breakfasts, safe in the knowledge that they now had no money left for their proposed day out.

At least Dick Turpin was honest in his intentions, he never (as far as I'm aware) referred to his dastardly deeds as a 'Welcome Break' to his victims.

British Telecom

Filthy. Thieving. Bastards.





nuff said..........

Help!!!

I'm getting married in two days!!!

The getting married is very great but the ORGANISING that has been continual and never-ending for the last 6 months has been rather stressful!!!!!!!

Hence my overuse of exclamation marks.

I can't wait :-)

I might have some time to get back to writing after this.........

I'm an Internet Junkie.....

I've been spending way too much time on my computer lately.

First there was the blog.
Now there is Facebook.
There is also BBC News 24, The Times Online and the Southern Daily Echo (which I read because I find the comments people leave hilarious rather than because I really care about local issues).

I'm starting to worry that in between my constant love affair with my computer, the scarily large number of books I read(as highlighted in the last post) and my late night addiction to DVD Box sets, I have stopped actually talking to other people.

Maybe that's a good thing. I haven't pissed anyone off (to my knowledge) for at least a week.....

A Little Aside From The Masterpiece....

Many Thanks to Toadee for this interesting little piece (please view his excellent musings by following the link on the side menu)-

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. Well let's see.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE. (I've put mine in red)
4) Reprint this list in your own journal/blog so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;-)

1 Pride and Prejudice
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I've read 48 of these...... And frankly, not all of the one's I've read were all that good. I would advise burning Jane Austen. Cloud Atlas is a lovely book, am a huge fan of Dickens, and Daphne du Maurier and Alexandre Dumas Rock!! This list is missing 'The Wind Up Bird Chronicle' by Haruki Murakami, which is the most beautiful book I've ever read. Read more people, it's okay, we won't tell anyone!!! :-)

Chapter Six

The coffee was bad. I'm no expert at coffee, I'll happily drink the instant stuff when I'm at home but in any other circumstance, I'd have set the cup back on the chipped saucer and left the coffee for somebody with a stronger stomach than mine. Or the drain, which is honestly where it belonged.

This, however, was not a normal day. It was not even a normal week and for once, I was relieved to be doing something Different. Michael sat across the table from me, the bright green eyes that had somehow managed to hypnotise me into agreeing to have a horrible coffee with a complete stranger were still fixed on mine, so I hung on to my cup like a security blanket and enjoyed the heat emanating from its murky depths, if not the acrid taste.

"I don't do this often." he smiled again, and those green eyes crinkled at the edges ever so slightly.
"Neither do I." I replied, and returning his smile I continued to wonder how this had happened. Don't get me wrong, I've had plenty of dates before. There have been lovers lost over the years but I'd never picked somebody up off the street. Actually, he'd picked me up when I'd almost smashed my face into the kerb and then, after a bit of small talk, he'd persuaded me to join him in the greasy spoon cafe that was situated, somewhat ironically, three doors down from the doctor's surgery. Hence the bad coffee.

The conversation meandered along a little awkwardly for a while longer and as we made our excuses to leave I found him pressing a slip of paper into my hand.
"In case you'd like to join me for a terrible coffee again." the green eyes sparkled and he leaned in, his lips barely grazing my cheek.
"Goodbye, and thank-you." I stuttered. It was as if he had read my mind but then he looked pretty human and the coffee really did appear to have been made for somebody with the constitution of an elephant.

I wouldn't call him.

That had been just a little too strange and on any other day, I'd have brushed myself off, thanked him and headed straight for the car. It must have been the lack of sleep and the general feeling that I was headed towards some sort of disaster that had made me behave in such an uncharacteristically reckless way. I stood in the doorway of the cafe, the smell of frying bacon wafting around me and out onto the street, calling people to the temple of the fried breakfast in a way that no fancy advertising could compete with. He didn't look back once. I watched the back of his head, light brown hair, disappear into the distance as he headed towards the busier end of the street, people milled around him looking lost and soulless in the way that every city centre shopper does. Just one more bargain. Just one. And then he was gone.

I breathed out. I hadn't even realised that I had been holding my breath until then. There was something familiar about Michael. I wondered if we'd met before, maybe he'd been one of Anna's friends. There's been many over the years and he was good looking enough to have been part of her crowd. Anna didn't have ugly friends. As I started walking towards the car park, I resolved to ring her as soon as I got home. I'd brush over the trip to the doctor, I wasn't ready to explain That part of my day but at the very least it would be like old times, the both of us giggling over a boy.

And for just a moment, I forgot about the nightmares that had been chasing me. Just for a moment.

Chapter 5

"And then I woke up!"

The lie tasted bitter in my mouth but I hadn't slept properly for nearly a week and I needed the tablets that I knew the Doctor would prescribe for me if I didn't sound like a nutter. I couldn't face telling this stranger ,who I only ever saw twice yearly for my check-ups, that the face in my television had been Real. My home had become unfamiliar territory, I had become unable to enjoy the time I spent there and, worst of all, my lack of sleep had resulted in my Being Noticed at work.

For the first time in my life, I had been pulled into The Office to talk about my Poor Performance. I had fumbled my way through some sort of excuse about Family Issues and, luckily for me, my boss was extremely understanding. She kept getting my name wrong throughout our Chat, but apart from that she had been full of kindly suggestions. Apparently there was a company psychologist on the fifth floor and Everybody went to see him. I declined, probably a little too vehemently, and insisted that I would be back to normal within a few days.

So here I was. My palms were sweating and I hoped that the Doctor would not want to shake my hand when I left the room. He kept tapping the computer keyboard on his desk as I told him all about the 'nightmares' that I felt were being caused by 'pressure at work' and my 'strained relationship with my mother'. I couldn't work out whether he was buying it or not, he made very little eye contact and I've never been much of a liar.

The chair I was seated in squeaked every time I moved. This was a disaster. Even the family photographs on his desk were glaring at me in an accusatory way. I shouldn't have come here. I should have gone to the psychiatrist. I could have told the truth, and then, at least when the men in white coats came to take me away, I wouldn't have felt like a filthy liar.

After what felt like hours, he pulled a piece of green paper from the gray printer on the shelf behind him, scribbled on it and handed it across to me.

"These should help with the lack of sleep. If you need more when they run out, phone my receptionist and she'll organise a repeat prescription." he grunted.

My ordeal was over and I had been successful in my quest for sleeping tablets. I felt like a prizefighter after twelve rounds in the ring. I was so surprised at the ease in which I had won my battle that I wasn't really concentrating as I hurried down the concrete steps outside the clinic. As I stuffed my slip of green paper into my over sized leatherette handbag, I somehow managed to twist my ankle. My right hand was jammed in the bag, and as I began to fall, my dark woollen coat billowed out and wrapped around my left. I was falling, and just as my face was about to smash on the kerb, a strong arm wrapped around me and hauled me back from the brink of intense pain and probably the largest dentist bill of my life.

Chapter 4

In the time that followed, I did my best to forget about my strange phone call. I have to admit that for a few days, I felt quite shaken by the experience but as the days turned to weeks, although it still haunted me at night when I lay alone in my bed, I gradually began to let it go and I never mentioned it to anybody. Not even Anna. It wasn't until nearly a full month later, that I was forced to think properly about it again.

It was a Thursday. I can't remember the time but it was dark outside and the last rays of the dying sun had disappeared down behind the horizon. I was in my lounge, reading a book. It wasn't a very good book and I was considering just giving up with it and heading to bed. I'd had one of those days at work where time appears to be running at a snails pace, I was tired and my eyes hurt from spending too long in front of a computer screen.

I put my glasses down on the arm of my chair and pinched the skin between my eyes. Despite my lethargy, it was still too early for bed so I had about a half hour to fill before I settled down for the night. I didn't really want to turn on the television, in case I got absorbed in a programme or film and ended up staying up too late but I reached for the remote anyway.

The television flickered into life. Puzzled, I looked over at my hand. It was still stretching for the remote. I hadn't touched it or pressed any buttons, and yet the television was clearly on. It wasn't showing a picture, just fuzzy white snow and it was making a loud hissing noise.

I leaned forward, the remote firmly in my slightly sweaty palm by now, and continued to stare in a confused way at the familiar object that had, in the space of less than a minute, become a threatening stranger in my home. As I got closer to the screen a face appeared out of the fuzz. I couldn't make out any details, or the sex, but it was definitely a face with eyes, a nose and a mouth. It was looking straight at me. Not just in my direction but At Me. And also through me, as if it could see everything I had ever known or done. I was terrified and yet I wanted to know what was happening. It was my curiosity that stopped me running out the front door screaming like a madwoman.

"Who are you?" I whispered.
"You know who I am." the television hissed back at me.
"What do you want?" I could hear the shrillness in my voice, as if it were coming from another person and not out of my own mouth.
"You. You belong to us and we are coming for you. You have long been hidden from us and now we have found you. You must start saying your goodbyes child, it will not be long."

The television flicked off with a small bang and I found myself on the floor in front of the empty screen. I did not remember making my way across the room, all I could think about was that voice. It was different to the one on the phone, that one had been full of fear. This voice had not been afraid. Despite what it had said, I did not recognise it and the only thing that I knew for sure about it was that I did not want to meet the person, or thing, that it belonged to.

It was time, I thought, to find a good psychiatrist.

Chapter 3

You think you know where this is going.

Introverted, shy, retiring girl loses popular older sister in horrible, tragic accident. Spends rest of story on a voyage of self-discovery until finding 'herself' in the final chapter.

You are wrong.

In my story, nobody dies, least of all my sister. If I wanted, I could reach a hand out now to the black and white plastic telephone sitting on the desk beside me. I could lift the receiver, punch in a few numbers and in less than a minute I would be having a conversation. With Anna.

I just wanted you to understand me a bit better. Or understand the me that was at the beginning. She doesn't exist anymore but she was there for a very long time and I miss her terribly. Everything was so much simpler then. I knew who I was and where I came from. Life was a series of non-events, of day after day of the same things, same people, same circumstances. Now it's much more complicated.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I want you to know the ending, even though you haven't even seen the true beginning yet. I want you to know the truth. I want everybody to know the truth, even though it's painful to sit here and write it. It makes it even more real and as hard as stone.

It started with a phone call. On my black and white plastic telephone, on a Sunday afternoon in late April. It was a beautiful day, not yet warm enough to leave your coat at home but the sun was bright, and there were no clouds in the clear blue sky. I shouldn't have been at home. I should have been out enjoying the first day in weeks that wasn't overcast with a thick grey blanket and relentless drizzle. To this day, I wonder what would've happened if I'd decided to spend my Sunday doing something else. I don't think I could have avoided what followed, it would've found it's way eventually, but it might have been put off for a while and the girl that was would have lived a little longer.

I was in the kitchen, making a coffee. I had filled my cup with a spoonful of brown powder and was waiting for the kettle to finish boiling. When the ringing started, I thought for a moment about ignoring it completely. I then thought that if it was my mother, I had better get the conversation out of the way with. She used to call every Sunday and we would struggle through five minutes of having nothing to say to each other before our goodbyes. It was only out of duty to our blood ties that we spoke at all. A small part of me knew that she felt bad, somewhere deep down buried in the granite, she knew she had failed to be the mother that her children deserved. The weekly call was by way of an apology. She would never say she was sorry, but it was her way of showing that she did care and by picking up the receiver I was showing that I accepted her attempt at rebuilding the broken bridges.

I hurried through into the lounge, not wanting to have to call her back, and picked up the ringing beast.

"Hello." I waited for my mother's voice to reply. There was a long silence.

"They're coming" said a quiet, strange, almost strangled whisper that I did not recognise. I felt an icy finger run all the way down my spine and for an instant, the whole world stopped spinning on it's axis as I tried desperately to comprehend what on earth this could mean.

The phone started beeping angrily at me and I realised my caller had rung off. Gently, I returned the handset to it's cradle and walked slowly back into the kitchen to finish making my coffee.

Chapter 2

I think the main reason I was always happy to be in the background was my sister. We'll call her Anna. That's not her real name, but it will do for my story.

Anna was a bitch.

I love her, I have always loved her dearly, but she was Hard Work. Three years older than me, effortlessly beautiful and slim and exciting and all those other words that I can't think of right now because I have always felt them and never said them out loud. She wasn't Hard Work for me, but for everybody else around her, she caused mayhem wherever she went.

When we were small, she used to look after me. Nobody would ever bully Anna's baby sister, not if they wanted a quiet life anyway. A boy pulled my hair at school once when I was about six. Anna punched him square in the face, breaking his nose in front of all his friends. She was suspended for a week and came back a hero. Nobody ever pulled my hair again. She was popular with a capital 'P' and in normal circumstances, it should have rubbed off my way. However, I reacted to her eternal sunshine by embracing her silhouette and was grateful, particularly at home, for the fact that people would forget I was there if she was. I loved the darkness almost as much as she loved the light and, I suppose, all those things They say about opposites getting along was more than true for us. With me she could be still, which wasn't something that happened very often. With her I could be loud. That didn't happen very often either. You would never have thought it had you known us, but behind closed doors we were closer than close.

My mother revelled in her wonderful daughter. She was always entering Anna for competitions and events, like she was some sort of pedigree show-dog. As far as my mother was concerned, I was irrelevant and I was left alone, until I fled the nest at sixteen, to do whatever I chose. My grades would never be as good as Anna's. I wasn't as pretty. I refused point blank to go to family gatherings and if forced would be a horrible, sullen embarrassment. My mother will never admit it to you, but she breathed a long sigh of relief the day I stopped darkening her doorstep.

Anna understood.

She knew that I wasn't like her and she didn't care. I've never met anybody as accepting and giving and loving as my sister and I never shall.

So I never had to be best, or first, or smarter because that was her job. I just existed and that was always enough. Enough for us, in any case.

My mother would disagree.

Chapter One

I am not a very interesting person.

I never came first in a race. I never came top of my class. I never won an award. I never pushed to the front. I never tried to be noticed. I never succeeded. I was never the best dressed. I was never ahead of the pack. I was never first to be served. I was never a guy's first choice. I was never a girl's first choice. I was never the favourite. I was never remembered. I was never the first to know. I was never the earliest. I was never the latest. I was never mysterious. I never had the best haircut. I never had the worst haircut. I never slept with a virgin. I was never special. I was never called beautiful. I was never called upon to help.

I never made an impact. You probably went to school with me. You only vaguely remember though, maybe if you saw my face in a grainy old photo, you might be able to recall my name- but more than likely you wouldn't. You didn't Dislike me. You just don't remember me. I wasn't your first love or the ugly kid with glasses that you bullied mercilessly for four years. I just sat quietly, out of the way, getting on with things. We may have played together, outside on those long, dusty summer afternoons when you were so young that a day felt like it lasted for eternity. The sun would beat down on your freckled shoulders hot enough to burn, but back then, nobody called social services if you did. We would play hopscotch and marbles and tag and all those other normal childhood games that everybody remembers fondly.

Does that jog your memory?

I thought not. You had fun with me back then, but it was nothing special. The memory of me isn't precious to you. Nor should it be. I didn't really care too much for you either.

Or maybe I sat at the desk next to yours on your first 'proper' job. Sometimes I would do the coffee run, if I was asked by Nina from the second floor. You remember Her. The girl with legs so long she could have been part giraffe. And that shirt! So tight it was practically a miracle she was still breathing at the end of the day. But as for me? I sat next to you for two whole years, tapping away quietly on my keyboard. I went to every office party. I watched you knock back the free bubbly until you were brave enough to scurry off to the stationary cupboard with Nina in tow. You had one of those party hats shaped like an upside-down ice-cream cone on. It was red with a gold stripe. And when you came out of the cupboard, (to a round of drunken applause) it had tilted to one side like you were some sort of comical pirate. You remember That party. But you don't recall that I was there.

I am a shadow.

I never thought that I would ever be anything more than that. Existing on the outside of everyone else's lives. Watching. Waiting. And I never asked for anything more. I chose not to be like you. I chose not to show off. I chose not to make the effort. I was happy to observe whilst life sped by me, longing for the day when I could finally shut the door and never set a foot outside it again.

But then, something happened.

And this is where my story begins.